Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Hi all,

Arrived home early hours of this morning after few delays (bit windy wasn't it?). Stayed at Rila in Borovets and here's my report.

We (Mimi 34, Andrew 38, Aaron 11 and Gemma 4) really liked the hotel. We had a studio room, 2nd floor, at the front (or was it the back?) overlooking the car park and experienced no noise at all. It was spacious, clean and comfortable with a fabulous piping hot powerful shower (and bath). The one radiator was never hot but we had plenty of blankets and extra covers and eventually became aclimatised and our stuff seemed to dry ok overnight. It was nice having a fridge and kettle although no one could work out when it had boiled, we guessed it was at the point when it was jumping up and down on the hob. We didn't have much in the way of cutlery however and had to 'steal' a teaspoon from the restaurant!

Sunday morning at the Hire shop (4 man chair) was chaotic to say the least but we got kitted out in the end. Disappointed at the standard of equipment (ancient and knackered) and ended up in size 3 boots despite being a size 5 normally! The skis were blunt, or was it my skiing, but i could not grip on ice at all.

Organisation of ski school was hit and miss and we just sort of hung around until herded in the right direction. Andrew ended up in a group of 11 mixed adults and children ranging from age 10 to 16 all from same family. He soon became bored and felt 'out of it' and after three days gave up altogether. Yes we know he should have changed class but he didn't feel quite right asking the instructor and didn't know how else to go about it. Aaron was also in a group of 11 kids ranging from 7 to 14 and although he really enjoyed it, again the abilities were too mixed and those progressing faster were not moved up. Consequently he never left the nursery slopes, despite being capable of skiing down from the 4 man chair and also the double drag at the top of the gondola quite comfortably (with us). The lift pass all of a sudden didn't seem so cheap and I think they should do a lower slopes nursey pass at a discount if the group doesn't leave the nursery slopes. I was in an intermediate group of 10 with crazy Emo who I thought was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed my time. I did leave the group a couple of times to ski with Andrew and Aaron and in the future would probably only book mornings and ski together in the afternoons.

Gemma was in kindergarten which was FREE which we were quite amazed at as we'd expected to pay around £80 for this. She cried every morning but seemd fine when we picked her up. She didn't seem to do very much and had no idea what she ate (nor did we unless it was chips!). The teachers gave them the 'choice' of skiing or sledging and only put a pair of boots on for two of the days, don't think they even had enough skis for all of them. She seemed to make some nice friends though. People who had children of 6 in kindergarten said they were bored and ceratinly didn't see them venture onto the nursery slopes at all so as far as skiing goes it was a waste of time. The teachers did not seem massively symapthetic and if you ventured over to them when they were playing in their 'pen' it was made clear you were not welcome.

The food was what you would expect of a large hotel, mass produced buffet style, ie. luke warm slops, they even had a tray of slops called 'mish mash' which said it all. We ate out at Francos which was excellant both food and service and we'd highly recommend it.

I didn't think that food and drink was as cheap as we'd expected and there was many an opportunity for spending money, we got through £500 very easily without much to show for it.

We bought some DVD's in the hotel and some are ok but others not, Last Samurai was in black and white and Lord of the Rings 3 looks blury but Finding Nemo, Pirates of Caribbean, The Italian Job and American Pie 3 all look very good quality. At around £8 each we thought they were good value.

The photographers with furry tiggers, tweety pie, spider man, telly tubbies etc etc were a pain when you were trying to ski but we got some good pictures of the kids and at £2 each were great souvenirs. Aaron and I also bought the video of our skiing which again is a lovely momento to watch at home and show everyone how well/awful we skied.

The snow conditions on the first couple of days were not the best as although we are told piste bashers run every night there wasn't any evidence of this on the runs I skied. The middle of all the lower nursey slopes were icy which wasn't helped by snow borders scraping off what little fresh snow there was. The gondola closed on Tuesday which meant the runs from the 4 man chair were very busy. On Wednesday althought he gondola was open only the first double drag was open so again those slopes were very busy. After that it snowed loads and the conditions were good but again lack of piste bashing and heavy traffic on the slopes made them mogul fields very quickly and there were alot of accidents. I personally found the skiing too limited and we seemed to ski the same few runs over and over again. My instructor Emo told me they are spending the summer building new runs so next year, hopefully there will be more variety.

All in all we feel as a first time ski holiday for Andrew and the kids we enjoyed it, some things better than others, but in general it was good. I loved the location of the hotel, the village which was pretty, the convenience of everything but they could do so much better with a bit more planning and organisation. I think Bulgaria is going to explode big time in the next few years and they need to accommodate this.

Sorry if this is a bit long!

Mimi

Mimi

Seems like you had a good time in all and lets hope some of the issues you've raised will be taken on board so that improvements can be made for the future.

It seems to me a shame that nothing was done over the last year to have a new chairlift in place of the 1 man. I remember the day the Gondola was shut last year everyone went up there and it was very busy so this year it is oviously a problem making the village slopes very busy.

We are going during half term and I'm just hoping it is not so busy that everything ceases to be enjoyable - hope not

Glad you had fun

Ellie